


The Flame That Ate The Wolf

by SlytherclawHomunculus



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bending Curse AU, Firebender Sokka, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-06 04:43:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21220775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlytherclawHomunculus/pseuds/SlytherclawHomunculus
Summary: Rather than being passed down by genetics, bending is passed down like zombism or lycanthropy. When Sokka is burned by a firebender, he attempts to hide it from the rest of the group. Despite his desperate will not to become one, the flames within are slowly but surely growing.





	The Flame That Ate The Wolf

**Author's Note:**

> Repost from my tumblr! :D
> 
> Part of my Bending Curse AU- https://carnistcervine.tumblr.com/post/184842498461/bending-curse-au

Sokka hissed as the flames burrowed deep into his skin. Katara had tossed the firebender aside with her bending, but his fire blast still managed to eat through Sokka’s arm guard. He looked at the reddening wound and let out a soft hiss. Horror slowly filling him. He had been burned by a firebender. Now he was going to become one. Sure, there was a way to stop it, but that meant healing the wound before it disappeared. Only a waterbender could do that, and Katara was a fighter, not a healer. He could put a salve on it, but the bodies natural healing ability was far to slow to stop the curse from setting in. Suddenly his sister’s voice pulled him from his thoughts.

“Sokka, are you alright?” She was looking him in the eyes. Glowing blue eyes searching his soul for something. She hadn’t seen the burn yet. Sokka held his hand over the injury.

“He melted my arm guard. It kinda stings, but I’m alright.” Katara’s eyes softened. The ice on her skin glittered and flaked off as she laid a cold, but gentle hand on his arm. The sheer cold in contact with the burning chi infecting his own felt far worse than the fire that was now invading him. Sokka shouted and pulled away from her. She reeled back as if struck. Sokka bit his lip. “Sorry… It’s just the cold-shock ya know?” Katara nodded once and lowered her head. “I’m alright, sis. I just need to change the arm guard and run some cool water over my arm.” He rushed off before his sister’s worried eyes could dig any deeper into his guilty conscience.

The young water tribesman knelt by a small stream and held the burn under the water. He hissed as steam rose from the burn. Sokka grit his teeth and used his free hand to press his arm hard against the cold stones under the water. The heat from the burn seemed to retreat deeper into his arm, sinking into his bones. The fire inside didn’t seem to want to die. Even if Sokka was desperate for it to go. He held it there, until long after his arm numbed from the sinking cold, and salty tears spilled silently from his eyes. He was going to become a _firebender_.

He was going to become on of _them_.

When he returned to camp, where Katara and Aang were, all evidence of his internal struggle was gone. They didn’t need to know. He would quietly make his leave before the fire consumed him. Before it could make a monster out of him. Before it ate him up and made him into one of those hollow creatures that only sought to burn all around it.

Fire had to burn to survive.

Sokka would rather be _doused_.

He sat silently, ate his tasty meat, made his bad jokes. Went right on back to being good ol’ Sokka. He would do his best, hold out for a long as he could, he’d do his best to keep his promise to his father. He’d protect Katara for as long as he could. Even if it meant, he had to go. He would miss them, and he felt certain that they’d the same. But they’d get along without him. Katara wasn’t helpless, and she had the Avatar on her side. Even if he was a goofy kid. He smiled bitterly as he watched the two of them, engaging each other. The campfire illuminating their faces.

His smile fell when he realized he could feel the fire in more ways than one.

He felt the superficial heat on his skin, but also deeper. He could sense the gentle pulsing and crackling of each licking flame. He could especially feel it in the burn he was hiding on his arm. It was hot and it hurt so bad. Spirits, it just hurt so awfully bad. It felt like it was still on fire. The curse was already starting to set it.

Spirits.

_Oh, spirits._

It wasn’t fair.

He was supposed to see this journey through to the end with her. Be by her side though thick and thin. Smile and shake the hand of the lucky fellow that ends up together with her. Even babysit the brats that she brings into this world. But he supposed that in this world, after all that’s happened, nothing was fair anymore.

Sokka got up, yawning as he made his way to his sleeping bag.

“Going somewhere?” Katara teased.

“Bed. You know, a man needs his sleep.” Katara sneered at him playfully.

“Oh right, good night, manly-man.” Sokka smiled to himself before curling up in his bed.

A crackling voice roused him from his slumber. It sounded like fire itself. Sokka’s eyes shot open and he curled in onto himself. _Spirits!_ The burn hurt so bad. And now he was hearing a weird voice on top of that. The strange, fire-like voice kept calling to him, so eventually he turned to face it. There was an eerie, ethereal, blue flame consuming the now dead campfire.

“_What?_” He hissed in a low tone. It was weird though, he could faintly feel the sun, low on the horizon as it started it’s ascent. But he could also feel it in the campfire across from him.

“_**Why must you reject me?**_” The strange ghost fire crackled, “_**I can help you protect your friends. With me, you won’t be powerless anymore.**_”

“Nice try, but I’m not a vicious monster like you.” Sokka sneered at the flames. “I won’t let you use me to hurt anyone. I won’t let you hurt _Katara_.”

“**_What makes you think I approve of the violence my people commit?_**”

Sokka fell silent. He opened his mouth to retort, but shut it and turned away.

“I-I’m not like you…” He mumbled as the flame dissipated.

X~X

As days rolled into weeks, the mark on Sokka’s arm slowly got smaller. And the fire in his belly slowly got bigger. He found that he could feel the sun, track it through the sky. He hated how pleasant the heat felt on his skin, and how he started to develop firebender instincts. He wanted the sun more and more. So to spite the damned flame within him that kept eating at his soul, he stuck to the shade more and more. His eyes were still blue for the time being, but he could feel the smoke curling into his lungs, tickling his throat. The veins around the disappearing burn were starting to look like the lines of hot magma peaking through the earth. Agni, the sun spirit, kept coming to him when he was alone. Begging him to accept his inner flame, telling him to prove that fire could be used for good.

Sokka scorned the ancient spirit each any every time.

He would sooner die than give into the flames.

However Agni’s words from their first encounter still rung in his head.

(_What makes you think I approve of the violence my people commit?_)

Sokka swayed on his feet. Was it always this hot?? It felt like there was a blazing inferno inside of him. Katara was looking at him. Her mouth was moving and the oceans in her eyes sparkled with concern. Sokka tried to respond, but instead of words, licks of flame and trails of smoke escaped his mouth. The burning pain in his arm finally faded and he collapsed to the ground. The last thing he heard was the desperate cry of the ocean as he greeted the abyss.

“Sokka! No!”

**Author's Note:**

> I have a tumblr where I post AU ideas and art- https://carnistcervine.tumblr.com/
> 
> I'm genuinely tempted to continue this.
> 
> But I have no ideas. rip


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